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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

1950's Atco - Need to run to keep up with it!

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Hi All,

I have a 1950's 17inch cut atco.  The engine runs like a dream (Villiers 2 stroke) and it cuts pretty well, although it throws the grass unevenly into the box which maybe suggests the cylinder blade needs a touch up on one side?

My main concern, though is that even at just above idle, it moves so fast I have to jog to keep up with it...  Any suggestions for what might be wrong, or were operators faster in the 50's?

Cheers,

Patrick

Forums

wristpin Thu, 12/04/2018

Designed to be used by hired hands !!!

All the two-stroke engined machines of that era tend to be fairly quick. If the engines are in fair order they will work at part throttle but other than that there's not much that can be done to reduce the ground speed, short of some major re-engineering.

gtc Fri, 13/04/2018

even at just above idle, it moves so fast I have to jog to keep up with it. ...  Any suggestions for what might be wrong, or were operators faster in the 50's?

I have fond memories of being dragged around the lawn by the old man's Atco at age 7. He used to get cranky if I let the catcher crash into the sandstone flagging around the garden beds, so I learned quickly how to time the flying turnarounds to avoid that, so yes we were faster. :-)

Those good old Villiers two strokes have two speeds: Stopped and flat out.

 

sidevalve@44 Sat, 05/05/2018

Yup, sounds familiar. My ATCO 14" with 79cc Villiers is just the same. Bought it to use at my allotment and orchard but trying to cut round the trees was a nightmare and very tiring !